


Change It Up

by XxDeva1PathxX



Category: own work - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxDeva1PathxX/pseuds/XxDeva1PathxX
Summary: Just drabbles that diverge off my canon character's universe.





	1. Chapter 1

Imagine a world where Four wasn’t kidnapped; in which he didn’t wake up one day to a basement and cold bars, but to his own bed and a warm breakfast.

This is a Four who eventually had to learn to hold his tongue, who knew that knowledge was more powerful than the knife that his father pressed into his hands. Where growing up too quickly was his own choice, not something that was forced onto him.

This Four didn’t know how lucky he was to feel deserving of the things that were passed to him. He knew what he needed and wanted, and knew exactly how to get those things out of the adults that passed him with sympathy in their eyes.

When social services came knocking at the door, he didn’t shy away from them. He locked the door up, warning his dad as the men started to climb through the window. In this world, his hands didn’t shake as he held a knife to someone else’s throat. Other people looked at him with pity for how he was raised, and he sneered at them. 

They told him stories of his father, who was at his side, stories of his crimes and what he’d done to other children. His own children. Four just laughed at them for telling him things he already knew.

(He never once felt unsafe with his back to Madsie, never once questioned how much his father loved him. Madsie never said it, but Four heard it in his concern, felt it in the breakfast he tried to make for him every morning. The eggs got better, but the toast always burnt.)

This was never about Madsie’s parenting skills, or lack thereof. At this moment, as they both fled out the window towards an uncertain future, neither of them questioned the other for their decisions. Madsie had been observant enough to keep his son out of someone else’s arms, afterall.

But somewhere else, a girl with wild blonde hair was being taken to a mental hospital for trying to bite pedestrians. She’d be back in her hometown at the age of 16 with unseen scars littering her thighs and places that should never be touched the way they were. If she could cry she would.

Somewhere else, a boy with red hair was just learning how to walk, not knowing he wouldn’t make it past 6 years old. A stuffed frog was just a stuffed frog, and the ocean didn’t swallow little boys whole.

If you had asked the boy with orange hair, laughing as he clung to his father’s shoulders, which world he preferred he wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. He didn’t know right then that the girl with blonde hair told the funniest jokes, the ones that were sarcastic and dry but still left you crying with laughter. He didn’t know that the little boy could have loved him more than anything in the world, that the boy needed to be protected from loving the people that didn’t deserve him.

If you had asked him now, he would have looked at his father and told you that he preferred this world. Four knows Madsie, he knows him better than he knows the other two, and he is selfish in this world. He knows his father, but most of all (and perhaps, most important of all), he knows what he wants.

His father comes across a blonde woman who doesn’t look at him with anything but detached disinterest in her eyes. He doesn’t know her, and he doesn’t want to try to, but she needs help and he isn’t a supporter of what’s happening between her legs.

When Madsie throws the man off her, she just regards him with a strange look he doesn’t think he’ll ever figure out, and pulls the money out of the dead man’s pocket.

“Thanks.” She says, the blood dripping between her legs already starting to slow. “But I didn’t need it.”

Madsie isn’t quite sure what to do with this girl (Vera will always be a girl to him, always be something to protect, no matter what world they’re in) so he brings her home, to his son.

Four regards her with careful eyes, not that fond of strangers, but sits her down and makes her popcorn anyways. He’d been wanting to talk to someone about his favorite Disney movies, and Madsie had heard him talk about them all by now.

They bond slowly, over stupid shows and pranks that make Madsie’s chest burn with irritation. But this is the important part; they bond over things that aren’t done out of pity.

Four never looks at her with anything of the like, his kindness had nothing to do with who raised him. He would always be soft towards people who needed that softness; that was something that was his own, not Madsie’s and not the kidnapper’s. He cracks lame jokes with her at night, made up of their own language, and is patient as she struggles with her thick accent.

He isn’t afraid to poke at her, like Madsie is (Madsie skirts around her like he’s done something wrong, and it hurts her but she’s not quite sure why it does). So when Four’s away and she has a breakdown, Madsie doesn’t know what to do.

He grabs a bottle of vodka and sets it down next to her carefully, she’s always been rather jumpy at sudden movements, and starts to ramble about how awful he is at baking. She doesn’t laugh, but she stops screaming and he figures that’s a start.

Four comes home to them sleeping on each other, Vera lying on Madsie’s chest like she’d always been there. There are burnt cupcakes strewn over the floor, and the two have frosting in their hair. Four just sighs, smiles at them, and throws a blanket over them.

He doesn’t clean it up, this Four never cleans up after others, but they do wake up to perfectly baked cupcakes with careful instructions on how to decorate them. Four doesn’t bother to chastise them when he comes home next and there are perfect cupcakes sticking to the walls.

Madsie finds a man with blond hair next. He’s large, hulking, and much more muscular than Madsie could ever hope to be. But he takes Madsie’s hands after he’d been shot, and bandages his leg with the softest of touches. He shows him his garden, his sunflowers and his succulents, and Madsie decides to take him home too.

Vera and the man become inseparable. Madsie and Four watch them carefully as Vera sniffs him, then hugs him, their hands ready to pull them apart if she starts attacking. The man cries, and Vera wipes away his tears.

Vale, as he calls himself, hadn’t ever looked for his family. He didn’t know that he had any left. His town was destroyed when he went back to it last, and he didn’t think much of it since then. He brought home strange pets and dandelions from the side of the road, Vera indulging him as soon as his bottom lip began to wobble. He cooked for them all, and their quality of life improved because of it.

He didn’t speak much of anything that happened, but Four found him awake in the middle of the night more than once a week. They drank hot cocoa in silence together, and Four felt as though Vale was mourning something. He never discovered what it was.

They never found the other two brothers until later on. One of them was found in a graveyard, buried carelessly on the edge of the property, his gravestone crumbling and barely legible. The other wanted nothing to do with their small group, vanishing whenever they thought they were close to him.

They found a thin, twitchy man next. Four thought he was a junkie (he wasn’t that off in his assumption, really), and took him to Madsie for help. Vale patched up the cuts on his arms, the man refusing to remove any of the layers that he wore over his body. He never blinked, his eyes almost always open, and Four eventually just tied a blindfold onto him.

“It’s getting creepy.” He argued as Vale frowned at him. “I’d rather him keep his eyes closed forever, rather than just stare at me all day. I could probably poke his eyes and they wouldn’t close.”

“Then you don’t have to take care of him! I will.” Vale insisted, Four sighing as the larger man stomped off.

Vera avoided the man like the plague, locking herself in her room for a straight week when he was first brought home. The man never brought it up, never spoke really, and avoided her too. Four saw him sit outside of her room, his hands shaking, until she told him to go away. They didn’t speak again after that, at least not for a long time.

Four wasn’t quite sure what to do with this strange person he’d brought home. He spent hours trying to get him to talk, practically having idle conversation with himself, until he finally bothered to ask the man’s name.

“...Captain.”

“What?” Four was startled, turning to the man who just lifted the blindfold to stare at him like he was stupid.

“My name. It’s Captain. Fuckin’ listen.”

When Vera came out of her room, she was greeted with the sight of Four and Captain throwing insults at each other, both of them grinning madly. Captain froze up as she coughed, her arms crossed, but she didn’t look at him.

“Four,” She said, her Russian accent heavy with irritation. “Where are the cupcakes?”

“In the fridge. Vale said to let them cool.” Four answered, shoving a pillow at Captain. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer, shuffling off to eat the cupcakes before they had cooled.

When a man, large and handsome, came to the door looking for Captain, it wasn’t Four who spoke up to defend him. Vera pushed her way in front of Four, standing in the doorway. Four had his knife in his hand, but Vera had a bone shard and that looked much more terrifying.

“He isn’t here.” She said, her voice dripping with intent. “I suggest you leave before he comes back. Pretty boy isn’t that fond of strangers.”

“We aren’t strangers.” The man was calm, collected. Four bristled as he spoke, his voice too controlled for his liking. “He knows who I am.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll find him. He stops by but he does not ever speak of you. If you are important, then I would have heard about you.” She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly confused as to why he was still there when she told him to leave. “It would be appreciated if you were to take your business elsewhere.”

When the man leaves, Captain thanks Vera until he is out of breath. She ignores him, holding up a hand when he begins to try and thank her again.

“Are you stupid?” She asks him. “I’m not letting someone kill you. No, you die when I decide you do.”

After that, Four sometimes walked into Vera’s room to find them talking quietly in another language, Captain usually listening as she spoke. They seemed to grow more understanding of each other, although that came with Captain’s tendency to annoy her and her tendency to hit him.

If you asked Four now what world he would have preferred, he would have a clear answer for you. He would look at Vera, who trembled when a hand came too close to her upper thighs, who was fiercely protective of her brother and her friends. He would look at Vale, a man that stayed up all night and misses something he never speaks of. He’d laugh at Captain as they cracked jokes, knowing that when he wasn’t looking Captain wouldn’t smile, his eyes never closing without a blindfold. He stopped talking every few weeks, and only Vera could get him to snap out of it. Hugging Madsie, Four would see his dad smile and laugh. But he was not as close to any of these people as they were to each other, his smile growing lonelier by the day.

Four would take in who his family was now, and think of who they could be. He’d think of a Vera who’d wink when Madsie accidentally touched her too intimately, rather than flinch away. He’d think of a Vale who didn’t seem to have a strange sadness and lack of innocence following him into the long nights. He’d think of his best friend who could close his eyes without panicking, and of his dad who would have a family who didn’t let him feel lonely for a second.

This was never about the people that they never met, the lives that weren’t saved and the innocence that was lost. This was about the people they could be, the people that they were now.

Four would give up everything for these people; he’d give up everything for the chance of a brighter future where they would all be a family with less sorrow. This wasn’t about what he wanted, or rather, it was. It was about him knowing what he wanted, and he always really knew.

Somewhere out there, there’s a boy with a stuffed frog that is more than just a frog. There’s a blonde girl who’s clinging to a man like he could fight away all the nightmares, and he does. Somewhere, a boy who bleeds fire eventually learns to become less bitter and stops running from the people looking for him. A gravestone reads a different name, and there’s an innocence around a sweet man who had somehow avoided it all.

Somewhere, there’s a boy with orange hair who’s not quite sure if his dad loves him. He doesn’t feel safe, and he has a long time to wait before he is. But there are people out there who are smiling, who are happy, and when he meets them, he thinks he knows what he wants.


	2. Luca AU - Stays

Imagine a world where Luca never died at 6 years old.

Where, when he stumbled towards the water, Madeline grabbed his hand and held him close. He got to see the fish and the frogs on the aquarium cruise they went on, and Madeline breathed a sigh of relief when he turned 7 years old. 

This Luca still wears silly overalls and cries when he goes to the doctor’s. This Luca doesn’t know what cold water feels like in his lungs, and he doesn’t know much more than the alphabet until he’s 10 years old.

This Luca looks in the mirror and frowns at himself, calls himself stupid and thinks that he’s worthless. Even if he can’t quite put words to these feelings yet, he feels them and it’s something that follows him for years. That’s something that the other Luca has too. He’ll never feel good enough, and there is no such thing as magic.

He doesn’t know that somewhere, people might have looked at him like he was the world. Somewhere, people depend on him and he’s much more important than he feels.

But here, he puts on his overalls and grabs his stuffed frog. Madeline makes him chicken nuggets, and he names each one of them. He never eats the fourth nugget. He thinks it’s a special number, and when his mom asks he says he’s saving it for someone. He doesn’t understand her tears.

By the time he’s 12 years old, he’s old enough and smart enough to understand how the world works. He knows why people look at him the way they do, and he hates the way his brain developed faster than his mouth. He stutters out his apologies and sentences, saying sorry every minute words leave his mouth.

Love isn’t magic to Luca in this world. He doesn’t think he’ll get any better, and love won’t change that. He doesn’t have everything at his fingertips here, and as he gets older he starts to tell himself to stop believing that he’ll get better.  
King George lies forgotten in his closet, and he keeps the doors, that sometimes have gusts of air with smells and sounds that aren’t from this world, shut. Love isn’t magic, it can’t heal him.

“But magic is real, honey.” His mom says one day, as he pokes at his last nugget. The fourth one. 

“T-Tell magic to remove the tumor in my brain.” He spits out, bitter and angry. “I’m not a f-fucking kid anymore.”

She doesn’t respond to him, just looks at him with that sad look he hates and takes the fourth nugget. He doesn’t know what she does with them, and he doesn’t care.

Right now, if you asked this Luca which world he’d prefer, he wouldn’t have an answer. He’d be angry, and bitter, that in that world he still couldn’t talk right. He still wasn’t normal, and that made him worthless.

He didn’t know the orange haired boy who would consider him the most important person in the world. He didn’t know the man who would try so hard to change to be worthy of him. He didn’t know these things, but he wouldn’t care. Right now, he didn’t think love could do anything and he was right.

At 15 years old, he went to the doctor’s again. His condition had gotten worse, and he was forced to stay there indefinitely. He felt defeated, angry, and scared.

“You’ll be okay, sweetie. You’ll come home soon.” His mom promised, handing him his 5th nugget.

“..I don’t want to.” He muttered.

“What?” She asked, clearly not sure if she heard him right.

“I don’t want to! All I ever do is s-stay at home and come here! I don’t live! I’m not alive! I hate it, I hate my life, I hate being c-cooped up and m-making you take care of me!! Why can’t you just let me go?!” He yelled, tears streaming down his face.

“Sweetie, I-”

“My entire life has been this! This f-fucking disease! I d-don’t know how to live, I don’t want this anymore.”

He stopped to take a breath, his lungs had always been weak, and hated himself as tears started to flow down his mother’s face.

“Mom... Mom, I’m sorry, I just...”

“I can’t lose you too.” She whispered. “I’m sorry honey, I know you hate it, I know I’m being selfish, but I can’t lose you too...”

“Mom, I’m sorry, I..”

“There were others. Before you, Luca. There were so many I lost. And then your big brother, Four, came along but he got kidnapped when you were very very young, honey. You wouldn’t remember him, but he loved you so much.”

Luca looked at the lone nugget on his plate, the special one that he never felt right with eating. He felt sick with the idea that it was waiting for someone who was never going to pick it up.

“He was just the sweetest, orange hair and the cutest eyes, but when you were 2 and he was 6 he... he just got taken away. Just like that. And they couldn’t find him, honey.” Madeline whispered, Luca wanting her to stop. He didn’t want her to cry anymore, he didn’t want to hear anymore.

Looking at his mother crying over a boy he didn’t know, if you had asked Luca which world he’d prefer he’d have an easy answer for you. He’d think of old hand-me-down toys and the nugget that was left to grow cold on a paper plate. He’d think of his mother, always there for him when he needed it, and missing flyers that were covered in dust in the closet of the office.

He would take her hand and he would stay there, in a world where he’d eventually become paralyzed and never leave his bed or a wheelchair again. He would hold her hand and tell her that it was okay, and he would stop being bitter. He’d kiss her forehead because she needed him most, and it wasn’t okay for him to leave her behind just because he was selfish.

(And in another world, the black haired man got better. A blonde haired boy who was rather fond of the little ginger one kicked him into shape. Someone would watch their birds soar through the sky and wonder who that ache in their heart was for. A black panther would curl up on this person’s rug and sleep, both of them missing someone they didn’t know.)

Love wasn’t magic. It didn’t heal sick little boys. But sometimes he didn’t feel angry or bitter about his place in the world. When he looked in the mirror, sometimes he believed his mom’s praises. He got to watch his mom grow happier, and heard stories about a little boy with orange hair who loved him more than anything.

Love wasn’t magic, it didn’t heal. But it gave him something, and he wouldn’t give that up for anything.


	3. Madsie AU - Insane Asylum

Imagine a world in which Madsie was sent to some kind of hospital, some place made for people who did things like he did. They strap him down and ignore him when he bites and hisses at the hands that come near his skin. What is he being treated for? He isn’t told.

They caught him as he just began his search for his son. The police raided and caught any man or woman in a building that housed a certain amount of stolen children. The children were saved, and most of the criminals were killed, save for a certain amount.

Due to Madsie’s history, and his actual reason for being there, the court decided that he was a perfect candidate for rehabilitation. He did not speak a word during his trial. He did not speak for years to come.

The hospital itself is a “repurposed” asylum. Special cases, such as Madsie, are taken there to be observed and treated. He walks past the insane and mentally disturbed and is acutely aware of how much smarter they are than him. Just because someone is crazy does not mean they are stupid.

The doctors here are only interested in treating the mental state of psychopaths and pedophiles. They do not have sympathy for this man with nothing but violent urges running under his skin. They want to know if the filth of humanity can be cured with nothing more than a stern talking to, or if they need an ice pick and a hammer. 

They watch Madsie with morbid curiosity and wariness. A few believe that he doesn’t belong there. He sits through his therapy sessions and takes the medication that he is given, and he is never quite as drugged up as he should be. He watches them back, with a lucid stare, and it scares many of the doctors more than the crazed lunatics do. They think he doesn’t take the medicine, and resort to shots. It has no effect. They keep him there for this reason.

Madsie is there for years. He sticks to being mute, his mouth firmly glued shut as he stares down the people trying to cure him. He doesn’t believe that there’s something wrong with him, but he doesn’t dare voice that opinion. They wouldn’t tell him anyways.

They ask him about his family; who was his mother? His father? What happened to his son?

When they, not too gently, prod at his son’s disappearance, Madsie loses it. He bites out the doctor’s tongue before they can pull him back down into the chair, breaking the arms of the people trying to restrain him. When the guards come to get him, he looks up at them and spits the lump of flesh in his mouth at their chests.

He is transported to a more secure area of the facility, the place for violent patients who lashed out against the doctors. He is given a small room next to a little girl that looks like she was dragged in from the street. He sees her and thinks of his son, and it breaks parts of his heart that he didn’t know he had left. If he isn’t heartless, then what is wrong with him?

That night, as he lies on his metal table of a bed, he hears the girl whispering songs and stories to herself. After years of patronizing voices, Madsie finds himself listening in on her. She mutters about brothers that were lost and gods and goddesses that would never leave her in a place like this for too long. He lets her voice drift over him as he sleeps, and finds himself relaxed for the first time in a long time.

Despite the peace that lasted through the night, he wakes up to her screaming. Peering out of the glass that separated him from the hallway, he sees multiple doctors making their way into her room with needles. Madsie backs away, cracking his neck as he sees the guards stop at his door to open it for his own doctors.

The needle in his neck is painful, and the harsh sting of a taser in his back is almost overwhelming, but he fights through the mind numbing shock and makes it to the girl. She is surrounded by doctors, but he pulls them off right before the next shock comes.

She is kicking and screaming as he surrounds her with his own body. He almost passes out at the third shock, but manages to smile down at her instead. He says nothing, feeling a second needle make its way into his neck.

He pushes himself to the ground next to her, not wanting to crush her as he falls. The world around him spins and starts to go dark as he sees the girl staring at him. He takes a shallow breath and lets himself pass out.

When he wakes up, it’s in a new doctor’s office. He’s, predictably, unable to move, but he can still roll his head around enough to crack his neck audibly. The doctor turns towards him with a blank smile, and Madsie resists the urge to roll his eyes.

They ask him why he did it; why he would try and save a small girl that he doesn’t know (a small girl who isn’t even close to his ‘type’). He doesn’t answer, keeps his mouth shut, and turns his head away from all of them. They don’t deserve to know anything about him.

The doctors confer with each other, and a decision was reached. Madsie and the little girl were arranged to meet again in a closed, safe environment where they could watch the two interact. Clearly this could be a breakthrough in finding out how to cure whatever it is the two of them had.

When Madsie sees the little girl again, he sits down and turns his back to her. She is crouching in the corner, growling like an animal, and he knows how it feels to be like that. She paces back and forth behind him, coming close enough to look at him properly, but not close enough to get in range of his hands.

When it had been a few hours, and Madsie felt her fingers gently touch his back, he slowly readjusted his position. She jumped back, startled, but moved closer again, faster this time.

He continued this pattern until he had turned around fully, and she reached out towards his neck instead. He heard guards jumping to attention, ready to pull them apart, but she just touched the small wounds on his neck and whispered.

“Does it hurt?” She asked, her voice thick with an accent that he couldn’t quite place.

“Not anymore.” He answered, just as softly.

They stay like that for hours on end, a meal being brought into their room when the guards deemed it appropriate. Madsie held onto Vera’s arm gently as she growled at the men approaching them, whispering to her that it was alright.

It takes years for them to be released, but they do it. They grit their teeth through therapy sessions and pretend to be proper citizens. Their arms are bound with bandages after the tracking chips are inserted into them, and they are free to step foot outside of the institution for the first time in 15 years.

Madsie is holding onto Vera like she’s a lifeline, and she does the same to him. They make their way into the world with little to no grasp of it, but they manage to do it.


	4. Erik and Madeline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU has to do with a mix between X-Men (as a Universe) and MY and my girlfriend's characters. Erik and Charles can essentially be considered OC's in this.

Let's say, after Madeline's 5th miscarriage, she packed up her things and left at the mention of another try. Her husband, furious, got into his car and followed her out.  
There was a line of cars in front, and Madeline stopped before the train tracks like she should have. Her car jolted as her husband rammed into it, pushing her in front of an oncoming train.  
Madeline panicked, closed her eyes, and held her breath. It was a minute before she realized that there was no impact.  
The train stood still right next to her, while the car behind her crumpled in on itself. Her husband scrambled out as a blur of red plaid flew past her car and clocked him in the face.  
Madeline rushed to her rescuer, and was surprised to find him floating, the cars around them shaking as his hands did.  
They made eye contact, and she thought she recognized him.  
"Erik?"  
The next time she saw Erik, he was on TV. She had settled in for the night when "breaking news" flashed across the screen of her tiny TV and his face appeared, along with the words "spotted in New York".  
Madeline packed up her things an hour later and started to drive.  
She arrived in the thick of it, Charles's "X-Men" battling Erik's "Brotherhood". Madeline was not a mutant, never a mutant, and so she decided to stand to the side as the battle played out.  
When a young man sent a beam of red light towards Erik, who was floating in the sky, she picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could. The thump was satisfying, and the young man crumpled to the ground.  
All eyes turned towards her. There was a roar of anger as Wolverine launched himself at her, and Charles shouted "Logan, don't!"  
'She's human' echoed in all minds but Erik's and Logan froze, his claws inches before her throat.  
Madeline stood there, angry and stubborn and scared. Her bottom lip quivered but she looked Logan in the eyes as Erik tossed him carelessly to the side.  
Charles couldn't contain the wave of surprise that he sent out as Erik defended this human. He knew Madeline, knew her from Erik's mind where memories of her were wrapped in cautious happiness and hope. He didn't think Erik cared about any human anymore.  
She stood between the two sides, making Charles and Logan shrink back by how she yelled. When Erik shouted, hurt and angry, Charles would respond, condescending and right (always right, but that doesn't matter because Erik was too far in to care, he couldn't stop now, not when everything had been taken from him). Madeline was a cold fury, regarding Charles with disappointment and Erik felt his heart skip a beat.  
"How dare you!" Madeline screamed. "How dare you think you know him, know anybody at all! While you have friends, family, and an easier life to fall back on, he has nothing!"  
"What he's doing isn't right!"  
"He lived through the worst things someone can go through, that's all he has. Don't ever tell him he's wrong for how he's reacted!"  
Erik watched her, astounded. He felt 19 again, the way her shoulders set and her chin raised up stubbornly, begging the world to try and prove her wrong.  
"Maybe you can see humans aren't bad," she hissed out. "But try, for a second, to actually understand where he's coming from."  
Charles hung his head in slight shame while the rest of the X-Men shuffled awkwardly away. Madeline had straightened herself up, her lip still quivering as she watched them go.  
Erik swept her up in a hug, breathing in her scent. (Pomegranate shampoo and a soft hint of chocolate chip cookies. She smelt real, and human.)  
"What are you doing here?" He asked her, quiet and soft.  
"I heard on the news you were in New York." She sniffled, trying not to think about the claws that were so close to her throat. "I'm not around and suddenly you're committing mass murders and threatening a telepath and his students."  
The Brotherhood was a lot less active, after that. Madeline frequented their hideout, bringing cookies and sandwiches to all the meetings. Most of them got antsy around her, angry that Erik let her in. It continued like this (little glares and hushed comments) until he sat them down and explained that he had never told her where their base was, and they should be grateful each cookie they ate wasn't full of poison.  
Sometimes, their location was compromised and they had to move somewhere new. Madeline would show up a week later with housewarming presents and the rest of the Brotherhood learned to live with her.  
While most of the mutants in the Brotherhood tolerated her, a few loved her. Raven, and Emma, were especially fond of the little human.  
Raven told Madeline about the years she'd missed ("Magenta capes, really Erik??") while Madeline told her about when he was younger.  
Emma would listen in, and throw in bits of sarcasm and commentary where necessary. ("Have you seen his helmet tan yet?? I swear to god, that's why he doesn't take it off.")  
Erik disbanded the Brotherhood the moment he heard that Madeline was pregnant. The child wasn't his, and he spent a week hunting down her ex-husband before he finally visited her at home. She didn't ask, but they both knew.  
He cradled her, let her cry herself out, and buried sharp pieces of metal in her yard. When her stomach got bigger, and the baby started to kick, she asked him to move in.  
Four spent his baby days cooing at Madeline and lovingly throwing up onto Erik. At two, when Madeline was trying to feed him some mushy peas, he thrust his hand out and the spoon lodged itself into the wall.  
Madeline scolded him, not surprised in the least. Erik bought him a lollipop, which he handed to the toddler with a wink.  
Madeline became pregnant again, but this time Erik was definitely the father.  
He rubbed her feet and shoulders, murmuring praises and touching her belly to feel the baby kick. Four pressed his cheek against her and whispered to his little sibling, promising the world and his second favorite toy.  
When Luca was born, he had dark brown hair and green eyes. He clung onto Four's hand with little fingers and crawled after him until he learned to walk.  
This Luca was chubby and unsteady on his feet, but he could walk and babble for hours. It's a cute image, yes, but he could walk and he could talk and God is that is a blessing.  
Erik stayed up late most nights. He slipped out of a warm bed and pressed his fingers into an exposed forehead, his helmet now a simple necklace.  
He read the news like it was a religious doctrine, clinging to every new law and belief that had anything to do with mutants.  
Four could push things away from him, could will things closer, and Erik watched him with both pride and fear, waiting for yet another child to be taken away from him.  
It was on the day that Four didn't come back from school that Luca showed his mutation. Madeline cried, inconsolable, and Erik shriveled in on himself.  
Luca looked at the two strongest, and most trustworthy, adults in his life fall apart and squeezed his little frog plush until his arms hurt.  
"I need someone." He whispered. "Help, help me please!"  
Something soft squeezed his little hands back, and Luca heard Madeline gasp before he opened his eyes.  
Erik spent the next few weeks with his head buried in papers. Luca was sufficiently distracted by King George, playing tag and hide and go seek. Madeline had shut herself in her room to cry herself out, and Erik had stopped trying to bring her food a week ago.  
He left, some nights, and stumbled back in with cuts and bruises. Some mornings he was alone. Others, he had Raven or Emma with him.  
The Brotherhood restarted itself under the name "Mutant Protection Services". Erik handed out files of mutants that had gone missing, and files of the humans who had taken them.  
Striker hadn't made any progress with Four by the time Erik's people got to him. There were countless others who were lying, paralyzed by fear or pain, in laboratories, but Erik only had one goal in this extraction.  
The shard of metal that went through Striker's brain was not sharp. Erik sent a dull chunk through him, watching the way his skin bent and pressed back until it snapped open.  
Luca, unknown to everyone, had managed to sneak himself into the labs. He squeezed his arms tight around a little penguin, whispering "I need help, please help me" until it squawked.  
Erik was getting his people out, as well as whoever he could rescue, when he saw a little bear march by him. He paused when a monkey, then a giraffe, then a mouse, then countless more of them streamed into the lab. Each one held the hand of a patient as they walked out, King George leading the last one (a small boy, whose body was riddled with piercings) to Luca directly.  
Erik's hands were clenched in an attempt not to vibrate the metal he could feel lying under Four's skin.  
There were some years of peace, after. Charles and Erik never talked, but managed to never fight, either. Word got out about Striker and the government's involvement with mutant torturing and experimentation; the president stepped down and many people were fired.  
Erik was decently pleased with this development, his little mutant rescuing group led by Raven and Emma these days. Erik found himself to be something of a figurehead; the scary Magneto, who was once experimented on himself.  
It's hard to look a man in the eyes and say his problems aren't significant when said man is a Holocaust survivor.  
The necklace came off one day, and a few weeks later he felt a nervous touch at the back of his head.  
Erik was busy teaching Four a more defensive way to use his power, Four successfully pushing him and whatever metal ball Erik threw at him away. When he felt Charles dance at the edge of his mind, he stopped for a moment, turning away to talk to an old friend.  
"Charles?" He said, just as hesitant, just as nervous.  
"Erik." Charles replied. "Hi, I didn't mean to interrupt you."  
"No, old friend, you aren't interrupting." Erik willed metal towards Four again, resuming their training. "What is it?"  
"About that day, in New York, I.. I wanted to say I'm sorry. And that you were right. Not about humans," Charles quickly added. "But your feelings. You were never wrong in how you reacted, and I'm sorry. I guess I spent enough time in your head to think I understood. I didn't."  
Erik was taken aback, unsure of how to respond for a moment.  
"It's...alright, Charles. I thought I wanted you to say that, and I thought I wanted to hear it, but in reality...there are things that matter more than our petty disagreements. I know I was wrong in how I handled many things. I think I know, now, where you're coming from."  
Erik felt a flurry of warmth and relief from the telepath, before another moment of silence.  
"I actually wanted to ask for your help. I know about your Mutant Protection Services, and I'm impressed. I think you could start bringing people you find to my school, a safe place for them." Charles said.  
Erik chuckled internally. "I'm afraid I don't lead them, old friend. Ask Raven."  
"I have, and she said to talk to you. Although, now that I think about it, she may have just wanted us to reconcile and stop being so...awkward."  
"Yes, that does sound like a plan worthy of your sister's cunning."  
"Think about it, Erik. I know you don't necessarily approve of my school, but think about it."  
Erik did think. He sent his opinion to Raven and Emma later, and the MPS changed it's goals just slightly.  
The most important goal of the MPS was the safety of mutants, the second being rehabilitation, and the third being reuniting people with their families.  
Charles offered a safe place, and set up a separate building to house mutants going through therapy and rehab. Erik reunited them with their families, when possible, while Emma and Raven took back those who were abused by their families in the first place.  
Erik still wanted the children he found to lead normal lives; he would insist on learning control over powers in the form of a tutor, while ferreting away the children who couldn't be in public schools (too dangerous for other children, or for the child themselves) to Charles.  
It was an amiable agreement and worked out for the better.  
Four and Luca grew up, Luca working with Charles to help the littlest kids who might want a softer (and plusher) hand to hold onto when scared. Four worked with Emma and Raven, extracting mutants from the worst places, and got better at pulling people in too. (He used that part of his power for hugs with his mom, brother, and, of course, his dad, Erik.)  
Erik slowly made the world a better place. He built his utopia for mutants, although it was open to anyone mutant friendly, and eventually challenged Charles to chess matches in their free time.  
It was healing itself, this world and those in it. Somehow, Madeline and Erik manage to pull it back together.  
Somewhere, a little boy is slobbering all over his favorite stuffed animal. His big brother is trying to sneakily feed him chocolates, and Madeline is watching "Breaking News" flash across the screen of her TV.


End file.
